And then, just as her mind was turning back to Declan and where he could possibly have gone, the front door opened and closed with a thud.

  “Declan!” she exclaimed before she could stop herself. “Where have you been?”

  She heard the rustle of fabric and boots dropping on the floor before he made his way back down the hall to the kitchen. He was wearing a cap pulled low over his ears, with a muffler around his neck and face, his wool jacket covered with wet spots from rapidly melting snow. “Ah, you’re up. I thought I’d just take a look around.”

  She stared at him, uncomprehending. “A look around where?”

  “A look around the house. You were asleep.” He grinned at her, his lips, nose, and cheeks cherry red from the cold. “You snore, you know.”

  “I do not!” she said hotly, but she felt her cheeks flame in response. “At least I don’t when I have a proper bed.”

  “You’re welcome to the one upstairs tonight, then. Just make sure you wear your coat. It’s barely even forty in here.”

  She started to retort, then processed what he said. “Tonight? You think we’re going to be stuck here again?”

  Declan shrugged. “I’m not sure, but I wouldn’t count on your car getting pulled out before then. I found some snowshoes in the garage and went down to the road to see the situation. I think we’re up to eighteen inches and the plows haven't even come this way yet.”

  “Great,” she said, all her hopes of getting out of here today deflating. “Maybe we could call the county and get an update? Or roadside assistance?”

  “I’m going to bet they’re probably busy clearing the highways, but we can try.” He unwound his muffler, but he left his hat and jacket on. He sniffed the air. “What is that? It smells delicious.”

  “Breakfast couscous,” Meg said proudly. “We used to bring it with us camping when I was a kid. Couscous, brown sugar, cinnamon, and whatever dried fruit and nuts we had on hand. I used the cherries and pecans from the trail mix I brought with me.”

  Declan moved to the stove and was about to lift the lid on the pot, but she smacked his hand before he could touch it.

  “Don’t take the lid off. You’ll let the steam escape and it won’t cook.”

  He grinned and leaned back against the island. “Fine. What do you want to do today?”

  She stared at him. “What do you mean, what do I want to do today?”

  “After we call the county and they tell us they’re not going to get to us until tomorrow. How do you want to spend the day?”

  “Normally, I would say binge-watch Netflix, but that’s not exactly an option.”

  Declan rolled his eyes. “It’s beautiful outside. We’ve got all this fresh powder. And you want to stay indoors?”

  Meg pulled out her phone and held it up so Declan could see the weather widget. “It’s six degrees outside.”

  He waved a hand. “It’s above zero. It’s totally fine. You know, there are several sets of snowshoes in the garage. I was hoping to find cross country skis, but they must have taken them with them.”

  “Or you know, Eleanor Gratz isn’t crazy enough to ski in sub-zero weather.”

  “Do you want to build a snowman?” He sing-songed the phrase so gleefully that she groaned.

  “Please don’t . . .”

  “You know you want to go out and play,” he paraphrased, staying in tune.

  “You know you want to be murdered if you keep singing.”

  Declan laughed. “Seriously. We could stay inside all day and work, or we could act like children and play in the snow. I don’t know about you, but I know which one sounds like more fun.”

  Easy for him to say. He didn’t have the result of this bid hanging over his head every minute like a dark cloud. Meg lifted the lid off the pot. “Breakfast is ready. Grab some bowls.” She rummaged in a drawer for a serving spoon and halved the contents of the pot between the two large bowls he brought to the counter.

  He didn’t even wait to sit down before he grabbed a fork and started shoving the couscous into his mouth. “This is amazing. Fortifying for a day in the snow.”

  Meg couldn’t help but laugh. “You never give up, do you?”

  “Nope. Not when it comes to snow. I spent more than half of my life thinking it was only something that happened in movies.”

  “Come on. It snows in England. Occasionally in Ireland, too, I’m told.”

  “Yeah, but not very often and not to this degree, at least not where I lived. And then I moved to Alabama, which is not exactly the snow capital of America.”

  She smiled despite herself. Even with the slight accent, he spoke so much like an American, it always surprised her when he said something that was typically British. No one living in America actually called it America.

  “What?”

  She turned her attention back to her couscous, embarrassed at being caught in her thoughts. She couldn’t let herself like him. Couldn’t feel fondness toward him. After all, he had been her nemesis, and now he was her competition. The last thing she needed was to mess around all day in the snow with him, instead of working on her design. In fact, that was probably his idea. Given that this house was originally his firm’s project, he might have even known the design brief was coming on Friday. How did she know he didn’t have a head start? Or was she just being paranoid?

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he said finally, almost as if he’d read her thoughts. “We spend half the day playing and we spend the other half working. Compromise.”

  She could feel herself wavering. “Work first.”

  “Fair. Work first.” He stuck out his hand to shake and reluctantly, she took it.

  “Geez, your hands are freezing. I’m changing my mind.”

  “No take-backs. You’re committed. We will be good little worker bees this morning and then this afternoon, we’re free.”

  “Fine. I’ll keep my end of the bargain if you keep yours.”

  He winked at her. “I’ll make sure you do.”

  Meg finished her couscous, all the while stealing looks at him. Why was he in such a good mood this morning? Last night he’d been nice, but unexpectedly subdued. Today he was downright . . . jaunty.

  When they’d finished the couscous and washed their dishes, they returned to the den, which felt almost oppressively warm after the frigid kitchen. Meg contemplated turning off the fireplace, but that meant she’d have to light it again in an hour or two, which sounded like too much work. Instead, she left the door cracked open and settled down on the sofa opposite where Declan was sitting with his laptop. “Where’s my—”

  “Table behind you,” Declan said without looking up.

  “Oh.” She twisted around and saw that her sketchbook had been closed and set aside with her pencil, which she didn’t remember doing either. Had Declan picked it up when he covered her? Had he looked at it?

  For some reason the idea made her feel off-balance, at a disadvantage. It wasn’t like he would steal her design . . . it wasn’t at all his style and that much would be obvious to anyone who looked at it. But the idea that he might have been looking at her preliminary sketches—just the random ideas that came to mind, might not even be used in the final project—made her feel uncomfortably vulnerable.

  She pushed away that thought and opened the sketchbook to a fresh page. She might have said she wasn’t going to use the drawing, but her initial instincts on a project tended to be pretty good, and she liked the concept that she’d come up with. It was perhaps slightly more organic, a little warmer, than her recent structures, but she could tell from the decor—like the sofa she was sitting on right now—that she’d lose Mrs. Gratz if she went too modern or too sterile. But that didn’t mean she was willing to backtrack all the way to traditional. She began sketching as an idea for the front elevation occurred to her, so engrossed in her work that she completely forgot about Declan until he stood abruptly and shut his laptop.

  “I’m going to work in the kitchen. It’s too warm in here.”

  “The kitchen’s freezing, though!”

  “It’s good for me. It gets my synapses firing.”

  “So that explains it,” Meg said. “You design cozy houses because you won’t let yourself be comfortable while you’re working. I mean, imagine what you would do if you stayed in this room. You might have a sudden yearning for metal and glass.”

  He studied her for a second, then cracked a smile when he figured out she was teasing him. “Perish the thought. I might even turn into Frank Lloyd Wright.”

  She grinned. “I told you he was your spirit animal.”

  He waved her off and left the room for cooler climates, and Meg went back to her sketching. But his joking words had triggered a thought. Just because a material was traditional didn’t mean it had to be used in a traditional way. If she just . . .

  She flipped another page and started on a second iteration of the concept sketch, incorporating her slowly developing ideas. By the time Declan came back into the room, she was surprised to find several hours had passed and she’d filled half the notebook with drawings.

  “Good work? I poked my head in here an hour ago, but you were so absorbed in your sketching, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

  She closed her notebook, stood up, and stretched, feeling not just the kink in her neck from the night on the sofa, but the results of sitting cross-legged for hours without moving. “I think I’ve got a good start, yes. You?”

  “I roughed mine out last night while you were sleeping. I think I’m squared away.” He rubbed his hands together. “You ready for some fun now?”

  She tucked her sketchbook safely away in her backpack. “I’m all yours.”

  * * *

  She didn’t mean it the way it sounded. Declan knew that. And yet there was a part of him that perked up with reckless hope. She was thawing toward him—no pun intended—losing that suspicious, guarded expression he’d seen since they arrived. He didn’t have any right to feel so stung by it, considering he deserved it, but when she looked at him with that half-smile, her eyes unguarded, it was like the sun coming out.

  He shook off the embarrassingly poetic thoughts. “So. Let’s get going then. You have some extra layers in that suitcase of yours? You’re going to need them.”

  Meg looked less than thrilled about what she’d agreed to then, but he wasn’t about to let her off the hook. He knew her. Or at least he knew how she used to be. She’d coped pretty well with the idea of being locked in the house with him overnight, but the longer the day wore on, the edgier she would get. And the more annoyed she would get with him, as if it were his fault that they’d misjudged the weather on the single snowiest day of the year.

  Or maybe that was all just an excuse. For a few minutes last night, they’d actually had a pleasant conversation where she didn’t look at him with suspicion or contempt, and he’d liked it. A lot. When she laughed, it did something to his insides, and he was willing to brave all sorts of frigid weather to hear her laugh again.

  “I’ll just wait in the hallway for you so you can change.” He slipped outside and then went to the front porch where he’d left his snowshoes, wondering if she’d actually emerge. He couldn’t rule out the idea that she might just settle back on the sofa with her sketchbook and completely disregard their agreement.

  So he was somewhat relieved that when he went back inside, she was waiting for him, bundled up like that kid in the Christmas movie who couldn’t put his arms down. By his estimation, she was probably wearing three sweaters beneath her coat, in addition to a scarf and hat. He couldn’t help but laugh. “You really don’t like the cold, do you?”

  “I’m okay with the cold. I just don’t like being cold,” she said. “So let’s do this. What did you have in mind?”

  He led her through the house to the attached garage, which was one floor down, built into the walk-out basement. It was a configuration he actually appreciated, so that was definitely staying in his design. As much as he preferred separate carriage house-style garages in temperate climates, no one wanted to have to walk through two feet of snow to get to their vehicle or be forced to shovel before they could leave home. Since Eleanor Gratz would never do anything as undignified as trudge, it was an important consideration.

  He hit the garage door button before he realized that without electricity, it wouldn’t do anything. He went to the garage door opener instead and pulled the release cord, then slid up the metal door manually. Pale light illuminated the cavernous space, which was nicer than most people’s kitchens, with an epoxy floor and yards of interior grade cabinetry.

  “Snowshoes in here.” He began rummaging through a cabinet to find a pair that would fit Meg.

  “Those are snowshoes?” she asked dubiously. “They look like giant skateboard platforms with bindings. I thought they were like tennis rackets strapped to your feet.”

  He stopped and stared at her. “Do you get all your sports knowledge from Norman Rockwell paintings?”

  Instantly, she turned defensive. “No. I’ve just never had occasion to snowshoe. For that matter, I’ve never known anyone who had occasion to snowshoe. Why do you even know about this stuff?”

  “I like the outdoors.” He found a pair that looked right, the bindings adjustable enough to fit her smaller feet, but the platform large enough to help her stay on top of the powder. “Here, try these.”

  He helped her fit them then encouraged her to take an experimental step. She immediately tripped and he reached out to steady her. “It takes a bit of practice. You need to keep your feet farther apart, like so.” He strapped on his own pair and demonstrated. “See? You just have to adjust your gait a little. Walk like a Neanderthal.”

  “So that’s why you’re so good at it,” she said grumpily, but there was a glimmer in her eye. “Okay, if we’re going to do this, let’s get it over with.”

  Declan crossed his arms. “Listen, no one is forcing you. If you don’t want to go out in the cold, don’t. I just thought it might be nice to get out of the house for a bit. We can even go up the road and check on your car if you want.”

  She sighed. “It’s not that. It’s just . . . I keep thinking that I should be inside, focusing on this bid. It’s the perfect opportunity to work with no distractions.”

  “I wouldn’t say no distractions.”

  She made a face. “You are a very big distraction, especially with your love of Disney tunes.” But she moved toward the garage exit, not the house, so he took that as a sign she was going along with him, at least for now. He hurried after her before she could realize how cold it was and change her mind, pulling the garage door down behind them.

  It took a few minutes, but Meg finally settled into a somewhat comfortable stride, though she still grimaced when she banged the edges of the snowshoes together. He moved next to her and gently nudged her to turn down the driveway toward the road.

  “So, why is this project so important to you anyway?” he asked.

  She glanced at him. “Every project is important to me.”

  “I know that. But you wouldn’t drive hours in the middle of a snowstorm for just any reason. Why this one?”

  For a second, Declan thought she wouldn’t answer. “Eleanor Gratz is high profile. And I need to prove to my firm that I’m capable of dealing with high-profile clients.”

  “Your other projects have been high profile,” he began, but she shook her head.

  “After the fact. The one I did in Boulder only got attention because two years later, the owner sold his tech start-up for a kajillion dollars and everyone wondered where he’d come from. But the media was about him, not about his house and his architect. And I designed a multi-family in Idaho Springs that got a huge amount of attention, but the buzz went to the managing partners, because I was only one part of the team and they were never going to give credit to a junior member. So yeah, this one is important. If I win the bid, I win the bid. I bring that client to the table, not anyone else.”

  “It sounds to me like your firm really doesn’t appreciate your talent.”

  “Yeah, well, beggars can’t be choosers. After I lost the job at Klein, I was lucky to get anything at all.” Bitterness hung heavy in her words.

  “Meg, I—”

  “I know, you’re sorry. You never meant to sell me out, blah blah blah.”

  “I did, though.”

  She stopped short. “What?”

  “I knew exactly what I was doing.” Declan’s face heated at the admission. “I mean, I didn’t go into it planning to hang the whole project management disaster around your neck, but when you took responsibility for it, I knew what it meant if I didn’t step up. I knew it wouldn’t reflect well on you.”

  Meg was shocked into silence. “I can’t believe you just admitted that.”

  “Why should I lie about it? You already know it's the truth. You already hate me for it.”

  “I don’t hate you.”

  “But you resent me.”

  She bowed her head a little. “Yes.”

  Declan started walking again, but slowly, waiting to see if she would catch up. She did. “Here’s the thing you don’t know. You were never getting that job.”

  She blinked. “Of all the arrogant—”

  “No,” he interrupted gently. “Because of my father. I was all set to step up the next day with you and take responsibility for our screw-up. But then my father called and told me it was all arranged. He and Nina Klein go way back.”

  She gaped at him, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. “So I never had a chance?”

  He shook his head. “No. So you’re right that I hung you out to dry, because there was no point in starting off a job having them think I was incompetent. But it didn’t cost you the job. You could have done absolutely everything right and they still would have picked me. Because that’s how my dad works. I told him over and over that I didn’t want him to interfere, that I wanted to do this on my own, and he went behind my back and did it anyway.”

 

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